Sunset over Lake Anne in Reston, Virginia

A gentle breeze creates curved lines of ripples on the water, while sunlight passing through clouds lights up linear stretches of the sky, which are also reflected as bright orange lines on the water surface of Lake Anne. Limnologist Jessica Rodysill uses lake sediments to reconstruct the histories of floods, droughts, storms, and earthquakes. This photo captured the "calm before the storm" moments before a storm hit Reston, VA. High winds and heavy rains transport coarse sediments into lakes. Measuring sediment grain size and other geophysical and geochemical data on cores collected from lake bottoms can inform geologists about the long histories of such events, extending thousands of years before recorded weather histories began. These data are used to test computer simulations of past climate trends to improve them for more accurate forecasting.